


even with just your memory

by guide_to_the_galaxy



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Memory Loss, Next Gen AU, Robots, as in next gen the amazing netflix movie, could be seen as friendship to lovers, donnie is a robot btw, jk there's comfort sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guide_to_the_galaxy/pseuds/guide_to_the_galaxy
Summary: And maybe Donnie had spent too long denying his purpose, or maybe all that time he was just perfecting it, and adding more things and people and love to live and die and fight for with as much passion as humans had. As Casey and April had.





	even with just your memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Werepirechick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/gifts).



> (PSA- if you haven't seen Next Gen on Netflix please do!)
> 
> In which Donnie is a slightly defective robot, and Casey and April are the beautiful parts of his life that he doesn't want to forget.

_His world comes alive in the corner of a torn up lab, with his arm missing and a girl staring up at him. Who happened to be holding his said missing arm. **  
**_

_“….gonna fix you up,” she said in a whisper, eyes darting around the lab as alarms blared. As his hearing of the world slowly grew louder, a lopsided smile curved her lips  and hesitant eyes watched him take in the sensation of it all._

(Memory Deleted)

* * *

 _“Go!_  Listen- listen to me,” his voice breaks as he stops Casey from scrambling out of his grasp, “You have to go now.”

He holds Casey by his shoulders and something explodes behind him. Every minute he was down _here,_ someone else was  _dead._  And maybe Donnie had spent too long denying his purpose, or maybe all that time he was just perfecting it, and adding more things and people and love to live and die and fight for with as much passion as humans had. As Casey and April had. He can see the reflection of fire in Casey’s eyes, wide and wet and face still set and determined to fight something he couldn’t.

And he understands his purpose then.

* * *

_“So what’s it like?”  
_

_It was autumn, and April pulls the blanket further up on her shoulders. But he doesn’t really get that sensation yet. He still lacks that part of living._

_“Hm?”_

_His thoughts are scattered, but the contact his hand makes with Casey’s tugs him down a bit, back to the rooftop._

_“What’s it like just…not remembering? Where you came from or…who you are? Is it scary?”_

_Donnie blinks, or thinks he does (somewhere, in the wires and circuits of his consciousness he wonders if he’s merited to call it that. other robots can blink he’s sure- just not the ones he’s seen) and still the sky’s the same: blank and starless, and the moon not quite full yet, cars drifting by in midair._

_“I…I don’t know,” he says truthfully, with wonder, without looking away from the night sky, but feels April’s eyes on him, “I guess it’s strange.”_

_He’s hardly given his origin a thought, spending the hours since his arrival to the world trying to understand its reality and his purpose within it- but never how he began, or where. It’s puzzling and frightening and enthralling all at once. And April doesn’t seem satisfied with that, still peering with narrowed eyes and parted lips, but Casey nods slowly, running fingers through his hair, his other hand clasped in Dee’s mechanical one. And for a moment the answer’s enough, and quiets the slow-rising fears beneath their chests._

(Memory Deleted)

* * *

So he tosses him. Away from this, and spins around in time to shoot a missile into his target.

Donnie only looks back twice for Casey, and hopes he’ll be forgiving when they find each other again.

* * *

 _“Jesus_ Christ,  _Dee, it’s too early for this.” Casey nearly trips, taking a half step back from entryway to their small kitchen where pots and pans and spices were thrown around, and April’s cat, perched in the window, kept a lazy stare at him, as if it were typical. Because maybe it was._

_Broken parts of their blender, electric stand mixer and- maybe their microwave(?)- are scattered, all labeled with little sticky notes and tape. Donnie sits in the midst of it, scribbling in a notebook with their dismantled toaster on his lap._

_“It’s 1:17 pm actually. You should practice_ not  _sleeping in ,” is Donnie’s retort, focused almost entirely on the mechanisms he’d broken apart, “And updating your appliances- you know they make convenient bots for this.”_

_“That I can’t afford, asshole,” Casey says, tip toeing over the parts to the fridge, and plucking Dee’s head as he does. He regrets it when his finger throbs, and bites his lip._

_“I’m not trying to be an ‘asshole’, I’m trying to help. To understand this…uh._ Shit? _Well, that’s what Mayhem calls it.”_

 _The sincerity in Don’s voice- something so_ human  _Casey can’t quite understand_  how- _makes him soften, grip loosening on the handle to the fridge as he makes a half turn back to Donnie. Because he still thinks his only purpose ever is to help and serve and_ kill,  _and it burns something in Casey, just like it did in April._

_“I know,” he says, simply, and hopes Donnie understands the weight in that, smirking over at his friend as he pulls out leftovers April packed up for him, “And don’t curse. It’s a bad habit.”_

_Donnie shoots him a bemused look, the metal hood over his eyes drooping and the purple little pixels he’s got for eyes flattening._

_He simply chucks a screw at Casey, and doesn’t miss by accident. And Casey halts, backtracking._

_“Wait, Mayhem fucking talks?”_

(Memory Deleted)

* * *

Two hits the to head and one shot in his leg keeps him down for only a second, but the crack in his vision spreads.

“Critical damage,” his body tells him as his vision blinks red.

“Screw that,” he hisses, mimicking Casey, and pushes on.

* * *

_He uncoils his fingers, and opens his eyes, vision going from red to green in the heartbeat that April and Casey come into view. He thinks April has his head in her hands, and his hand- the one not aimed to shoot- is in Casey’s._

_“We gotcha…” April breathes, and Donnie swears he’s breathing too._

_But no, that’s impossible. Robots can’t breathe; he has no heart, and yet it feels so incredibly full and heavy, and he has only circuits but he knows he’s got to be breathing right now. Barely. But making it back to something even that matches the pitch of April’s exhalation and the steady movement of a pulse from beneath the skin on her thumb that’s rubbing the temple of his head._

_The target bounces between the two of them and when it settles on Casey’s face, a cut on his forehead and a split lip,  Donnie feels like shutting down._

_In these moments he feels extraordinarily human, and wishes he couldn’t- wishes he was designed much simpler, wishes he could_ remember _who made him_ feel, _who made his consciousness. Who made him so broken. And he wishes, still, to keep this feeling burned in his core someplace._

_So that even in this, he would still be able to experience a touch, and what wonders a hopeful smile could do._

_His gun retracts finally, and his legs buckle._

(Memory Deleted)

* * *

For a second, the rockets careening toward him, burning with static-like flame, look like fireworks. It’s almost beautiful.

* * *

 _“Holy_ hell,  _that’s awesome!”_

_“Thanks, I know,” Donnie smirks over at Casey with his eyes, watching the sky explode with color he made, from the rooftop with his best friends._

_He’s not fully aware of it- of wrapping an arm around April who, despite being almost a head shorter than him, manages to tug Donnie down and bop him on the head._

_“That’s for the next six_ years  _of Casey wanting fireworks on his birthday that say ‘karma can suck my dick, I made it another year’-” and then, just as fast as she pulled him down, she throws her arms around his middle, “And that’s for…”_

 _A lot of things she doesn’t have to say, a lot of things she_  couldn’t  _say- not the right way just yet._

_She never gets to when Casey runs up and tackles the both onto the old beat up mattress, and they watch drones and cars fly above them._

(Delete Memory?)

* * *

All those memories flash before him, as his body gives under crumbling buildings and broken glass.

Donnie counts to ten and back, and mourns every lost moment with them as rockets shoot from his aching chest.

And when it’s a done, and the last memory lingers- of them, tangled up and talking about everything and nothing at all, listening to the rain and each other- well Donnie sends out a prayer to the universe that, just like before, he’d find his way back to them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading guys! Hope ya liked it!


End file.
